I think we should absolutely accept the Anthropocene epoch to the geologic time scale. To not actively address and take into consideration of humans effect and alteration of the environment on the time scale would be ignoring the cause of a extremely major factor in the rapid changing of the earth in the past few hundred years. As to what time we should start to take this into consideration for, it should be somewhere between the beginning of the exploration age and the industrial revolution. From how I see it, this is one of the most important and large factors in the rapid alteration of the environment. With the timber industry booming in the exploration age to build ships and new buildings in settlements, this created a large deficit of trees during this time, causing a large environmental impact of deforestation. In the industrial era, it’s a bit more obvious and straightforward as to what the negative impacts of humans on the environment is, with all the burning of coal and harvestation of natural resources.
I think the need people feel to conform to whatever their social peers believes reflects a sense of sheeping that is common with humans. This conformity, however, can be catastrophic in the climate sciences arena due to lawmakers and legislators feeling this influence from their peers and parties to either agree or disagree with whatever opinion the aforementioned believe in themselves. This leads to not much being done about the catastrophic effects we have seen result from years of neglect for our actions on the environment and climate.
I agree that people are having a rampant effect on the earth but that does not mean that we have to rename everything after ourselves. There are many issues that need to be addressed right now and debating what to call the end of the world as we have known it for the last century does not seem high on my list of concerns. It is not even people as individuals that are causing the most harm although it is a large factor. It is mostly how we run our industry and organize ourselves right now. If we changed the way we did things from the bottom up starting with a reorganization of our city structures and social views of how we should live our lives things would change more rapidly than with the top down approach of changing names till people listen.
I definitely agree with you that we should accept the Anthropocene epoch, though in my opinion the beginning of it should be established much earlier than you suggest. It can be seen in the geologic record that humans have been greatly affecting their environment since the megafauna extinction at the end of the Pleistocene, and I think that this is where the Anthropocene should begin. An epoch being defined by a noticeable change the geologic record, this seems to make the most sense to me. However, I definitely understand where you’re coming from with the ages of exploration and industrialization because this is around the time that humans began having major impacts on the global system through trade and industrial activities.
Hi Owen, I want to completely free with your post in the fact that we should accept the Anthroponcene age. We as humans have left a very impactful affect of the world we live in, from deforestation to not having another ice age for thousands of years. I also agree that we as people do look to be convinced into what we believe. But I do not agree with you that, that is the way to get others to understand how the climate is changing. Your term sleeping is perfect but I believe we should move towards more understanding and explaining, just so everyone is equally understanding.
Great post Owen. I really agree with you that it is extremely important to recognize a new epoch. By ignoring this new epoch we are ignoring the impact that humans have caused to earth. If you believe in climate change, then you should be behind the idea of recognizing a new epoch. I also agree with the time it should begin. Right around the industrial era is when people began burning unprecedented amounts of coal, oil, and gas, all of which are extremely harmful to our planet. I also find your second paragraph very similar to my own. It is human nature to want to fit in, so oviously going against your group of people is something no one wants to do. Unfortunately some people might never share their true views on climate change because they’re afraid of what their “group” will think of them.
I agree, I think the anthropocene epoch is definitely useful for our geological time scale classification… this period has been monumentally impacted by human activity and the habitation of humans and expenditure of resources. I also think that people are very accustomed to finding groups of people who have the same world-view as them, and so in part some things aren’t even talked about among certain groups of people on a regular basis. I also think news outlets purposefully use their knowledge of bias to get a larger fan base and feed people information they think they can fully trust.
I totally agree with you with both paragraphs. I think we need to accept the Anthropocene epoch as well. More now than ever, we can see the impact mankind has made on the environment and there are still people out there claiming it is a myth. Because of those people, not much is being done to prevent it. What solutions do you have to change that? How can we get other people to believe the catastrophic events that are taking place before it gets worse?
I agree with you, in that I think that we 100% need to accept the Anthropocene epoch. We can truly see the effects humans have had on Earth and its natural state through research into carbon concentrations in the atmosphere and by just looking around at how much we have urbanized certain places. I think that the need to conform is also a huge barrier in actually getting anything accomplished regarding climate change because if one person is surrounded by ten other people who claim climate change is a myth, chances are that one person will agree with the others. Until we find a way to reach a middle ground I think that climate change will continue at the rate it is currently progressing at.